IRISH PROP Andrew Porter has offered his support to Ireland's women's team after Anthony Eddy, the IRFU director of women’s rugby, said sorry for his comments he made about the team this week.
The IRFU director gave a press conference on Monday in which he mentioned some players within the squad have interpreted as being critical of their failure to qualify for next year’s World Cup, Eddy has issued an apology since.
Cliodhna Moloney, Ireland's hooker took to twitter to show her displeasure over Eddy's comments, saying:
I could have sworn that the slurry spreading season was spring… I stand corrected.”
I could have sworn slurry spreading season was spring… I stand corrected 👀 https://t.co/fgG8ef3CbR
— Cliodhna Moloney (@cmoloney3) November 9, 2021
A respected website called ScrumQueens that covers women's rugby produced a report that said that the IRFU’s performance director, David Nucifora, contacted the hooker over her tweet.
Irish captain Ciara Griffin and the team have stood by her,
Yesterday Porter was asked if he felt sympathy for the women's team in the wake of the controversy.
“Yeah, 100 percent,” he replied. “Across the board, for an Irish team you always want your country to be doing well. You always want the players to be happy.
“You could imagine, if you were in their shoes, how disappointed and hard they must have been at the time.
“Everyone’s behind them in terms of the organisation and all the players are behind them as a whole, really, they’ve a huge game coming up this weekend and we wish we could have gone to it but we can’t because of the bubble.
“But, yeah, obviously there are frustrations there but the amount of support they have behind them is huge.
“I think it’s (important for them to) just know they’re supported and there’s a lot of people behind them.”
Ireland men’s head coach, Andy Farrell, was also asked yesterday if he had confidence that the women’s team would get the same support that his side received.
He replied: “Well look, I suppose I don’t need to comment too much because I’m not too privy to what’s going on. All I do know is that I have confidence. I know that there’s a review that’s going on that will sort the issues out.
“I know that everyone at the IRFU is going in the same direction to try and put our best foot forward for every aspect of Irish rugby.”
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